Days like today are the ones where I sit back and reflect on the days before and think, "How is it only Thursday?" Everyone in the Southeast knows how cold the past couple nights have been. Milledgeville experienced lows in the teens with wind chills in the single digits. Being a property manager, this causes grave concern regarding water issues. Having been a community manager for just over a year, the potential of frozen and busted pipes could very well have been my biggest test thus far.
Tuesday morning began with a 7:45 A.M. phone call from a resident. "Philip," she said in her deep, southern drawl, "Sorry to bother you this early, but I have absolutely no hot water in my house. The cold water works just fine, but I don't have any hot water." I replied, "I'll call maintenance and have them take a look." Now, knowing full well there wasn't anything I or maintenance could do about her situation, I still had to appease her by making the effort. You see, when pipes freeze, there generally isn't anything you can do about it until they thaw out. For those of you wishing to get technical, there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that either I or maintenance was getting up in her attic with a torch to thaw out her pipes.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the only call Tuesday. By 9 A.M., I had received another 6 calls or so. By 11, that number was probably closer to 50. Sometimes you have to handle the things out of your control the best you can. Keep a positive attitude, instruct those in distress how to best handle the situation, and make sure they know the signs of busted pipes. Fortunately, a busted pipe has yet to be reported.
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